Live365 announces shut-down at the end of January

We are seeing reports that Live365 has informed its current broadcasters that it will be shutting down at the end of the month. The Internet radio hosting platform laid off the bulk of its staff and left its offices at the end of December, shortly after the Copyright Royalty Board decision about new rates sent shockwaves through the community of smaller webcasters. RAIN News is seeking verification of the news from our contacts at Live365.

A quote currently circulating from the email reads: “We are sad that we are closing our doors at the end of this month. There are always possibilities that we can come back in one form or another, but at this point in time, January 31, 2016 is the last day that Live365’s streaming servers and website will be maintained and supported.”

Live365 said that the changing royalties, especially with the expiration of the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009, and the loss of long-time investors were the reasons for the shutdown. The company supported a wide range of online programming, and given the current financial climate, it may be difficult for many of those shows to find new homes.

33 Comments

I have been a Live365 broadcaster since 2001. I can confirm that Live365 sent an email notice to it’s broadcasters indicating they would be shutting down at the end of this month. A majority of the major broadcasters on Live365 have already shut down their Live365 streams and moved to Radionomy, which is overseas in Belgium. Some, like myself, are continuing for the time being by using StreamLicensing. Many small webcasters have shut down their stations, and many more will probably shut down at the end of the month. If Congress doesn’t step in, a large number of small webcasters will simply vanish, or they will move their streams to overseas services – neither of which is good for diversity in internet programming or for the U.S. economy.

Well at least you got an email. All I got was the inability to post playlists any.more because I didn’t have any V I P listeners. I hope they at least refund my money. I wasn’t supposed to renew until August.

I, too, have been with Live365 since 2001 and received that email. Unfortunately, our stream will cease operations Jan. 31. The cost to direct license and start over is at least $1700 in expenses and I don’t have the budget to shell that amount out right now.

Live365’s closing has really thrown us for a loop. We may return in the future but for now we’re going to have to shut the stream down.

The email from Live365 went out last Friday. A lot of its broadcasters seem to have missed it because it went to their spam folders or to addresses they don’t check. Oddly live365 hasn’t posted anything on its pages. Perhaps its few remaining employees aren’t able. This situation is a terrible blow for small time Indy web radio. Many stations, including mine (birchstreetradio.com) have moved to Radionomy, but it has minimum listenership levels that many of us will find hard to reach. So indeed, thousands of small webcasters are about to be silenced.

Robert, the December news was that Live365 had laid off most of its staff and vacated its office. At that time, there was no word on the future, as the company sought new investors. The emails sent to webcasters this week mark the first announcement that Live365 would go out of business on January 31.

The announcement of the new 2016 royalty rates from SoundExchange and the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) just put a whole bunch of nails in the coffin of Internet Radio.

For us here at PULSE 87, the new rates would mean close to a 2000% increase in our royalty payments! This is simply far more money than the station could ever hope bring in through advertising given the very low rates being paid for streaming ads and would mean a loss of tens of thousands of dollars a year. Furthermore, as our audience grows, our royalty payments would grow at a much larger multiple than any increase we could ever hope to see in advertising revenue.

Apparently, SoundExchange has decided, on behalf of the artists whose interests it purports to represent, that they would rather get 100% of NOTHING versus some reasonable percentage of SOMETHING!

We have always supported paying a reasonable royalty rate. Artists should receive compensation for their creative works. The Small Webcasters License, under which PULSE operated, provided just that. Artists were compensated based on the financial performance of the internet station. Now they will get nothing and will lose an important outlet for new artists and new music.

Thousands…..very likely tens of thousands of internet stations will go off the air depriving artists, many of whom can’t get the time of day from terrestrial radio, of a substantial platform to expose their music. LIVE 365 alone streams over 5000 stations and they may well be completely gone in the next month or so.

It is remarkable to see a music industry that has bemoaned the shrinking opportunities to expose new artists and new music in an increasingly consolidated radio world so blithely force the shuttering of one of the best and few remaining platforms to do just that. Many of the artists that you hear on mainstream radio today got their first exposure on internet radio. Then six, seven, twelve months later they were “discovered” by the corporate Programming folks at radio.

Bring back the Small Webcasters License that would put us all back on the air. Return an important outlet for artists and new music discovery. We’re happy to pay a reasonable percentage of revenue for music royalties. We simply can’t pay many many times MORE than we can ever hope to take in. Do you know any business that can?

I worked at Live365. Besides the issue at CRB, it was the BAD LEADERSHIP by the CEO that brought the company down. I watched that guy do everything wrong. His ego was so big he couldn’t see the solution was right in front of him. He had the best radio programmer in the nation, Dennis Constantine and some of the finest staff comprising his team. CEO knew nothing about radio and diverted all the capital to other projects that weren’t part of the core function. If anyone wants to know the real story, contact me directly! Otherwise, my solution is Radiojar. I’m moving many stations over there. Another is Streamguys, talk to Matt Kellogg, my colleague now works there. Live365 would be alive today if it wasn’t for the bad leadership of the CEO. The CRB ruling is an issue, but we can all wade through it !!! Good luck…

If you have questions about streaming options, please feel free to reach out to me personally, mkellogg@streamguys.com. I am intimately familiar with Live365 and I believe our services can help you. We have relationships with iHeartRadio, Radionomy, and Tunein. Not too mention, we have monetization options including subscription systems for your website, ad-sharing revenue, and give YOU the option to geo-target your own ads at beyond minimal costs to you…

Is there a listing somewhere of what stations have joined Securenet/Cirrus and Radiojar and Streamguys? I’m specifically looking for easy listening and soft rock streams to add to my iTunes library. Those would be stations that play Celine Dion, Michael Bolton, The Carpenters, Barbra Streisand, etc. That kind of music is no longer played on FM in my neck of the woods, which is why I’m trying to seek out streams on the internet.

Other than Stream Licensing.com and Pro Net Licensing.com and Radionomy.com, I would recommend checking out Internet-Radio.com’s Easy Listening stations. I’ve found a couple of UK based stations that play that kind of music (Heartbeatfm.com, Barrowsideonline.com).

Because of American small internet stations having to shut down, I’m seeking out streams from overseas as well. The thing I keep encountering is that not too many foreign small internet stations play American singers and bands that I grew up on (the ones Music Lover mentioned as examples).

If you can put up with some chatter (DJ’s, advertisements, this Irish station plays the American artists we enjoy. (sunshineradio.ie/relax/) I found it amongst the Easy Listening streams on Internet-Radio.com.

Here are two more I found on Internet-Radio.com when I searched using the terms “soft rock”, “lite rock”, and “light rock”:
enchos.com/magic107 (not sure if it’s US based or if it’s overseas)
classyradioonline.com (looks like it’s US based)

My issue with the Classy Radio station is that they play some soft hits that I love (such as Celine Dion or Elton John) and mix it with some annoying stuff (such as John Mellencamp). Of course, now, many such stations, both FM and internet, have dropped the soft stuff completely.